|
SubscriptionsSites I Read
|
|
|
|
| I found this challenge in the pages of a book I'm reading, and it got me thinking...
What is -in one sentence- the single most important thing you are going to do with the rest of your life?
I actually kind of have two answers (cheating, I know), but really, they are intertwined. For me, the single most important thing I am going to do with the rest of my life is as simple as this: glorify God. I think one of the ways that will manifest itself in my life, however, is through my efforts to bring about reconciliation. Reconciliation has been such a prevalent theme and motivator in my life, and I didn't even realize it until now. It's at my core. It's the reason why I experience great unrest when relationships go sour and the reason why I don't give up on them until they are reconciled, even if it takes as long as 5 months or 9 years (neither of which are an exaggeration). It's the reason why -even though I'm white- I feel more out of place in a room full of white college students than I do attending a high school that has a large Filipino and Vietnamese population. It's the reason why I feel completely at ease having a full-fledged conversation with a homeless woman on the street. It's the reason why I am so driven to work with children, especially children of diverse backgrounds, socioeconomic statuses, and abilities all in one classroom. The children I work with are young and in a few years they won't remember how I made them laugh or that I was the one to help them differentiate colors or help them understand how a caterpillar becomes a butterfly, but somewhere in their mind will be faint memories of how I treated the kid with autism or a cleft lip as if (s)he were a "normal" kid, how I treated the immigrant or marginalized kid who is the target of jokes and bullying as if (s)he were no less of a person, and how I strengthened the notion that [most] people are safe and able to be trusted.
I can't bring about global reconciliation on my own, it certainly won't happen in my lifetime, but I can be personally reconciled with every person I come into contact with, and hopefully that will spiral outwards. | | |
| My newest friend, Rose, is sixty-one years-old. She's also homeless. Joey and I have now run into her two Saturday evenings in a row and have talked to her for at least an hour on each occasion. Mostly, we listen to her talk. She claims to be a victim of identity theft so the first night we listened to her talk about that, and how her life now looks so different than it used to be ("I've always been a moral person. I'm not lazy. Even now I still pick trash up off the street when I see it..."). Tonight the conversation stemmed more around her outrage at the Pledge of Allegiance being banned in schools.
Sometimes we'll talk about her family, but I'm still not exactly sure what's going on with them. She's very soft-spoken and the two times we've conversed it's been with the roar of traffic in the background so I miss a lot of what she says, but I do know that her daughter won't even let her take shelter in her driveway, she had a husband at one point, and her father-in-law (a WWII veteran) died in the backseat of her and her husband's car.
There is so much stigma attached to the label of homelessness, and I know people see all the stereotypes when they look at Rose. Rose knows that's what people see when they look at her. (FYI, Rose has never once panhandled Joey or me for change. We've approached her, and in fact, the $2 she had to her name tonight so offered to put towards buying me a soda.) She used to believe that it didn't matter what people thought of her, but now she feels their judgment everywhere she goes. She's so ashamed of her predicament, she feels so dirty. She asked us to write down our names before we left tonight and I also slipped her a note saying I think she's beautiful. I meant it, too. She's loved by God. She matters. She says everyone thinks she's crazy. Maybe she is. Maybe I'm naive for choosing to believe otherwise, but I've accepted my naivety as a part of what makes me beautiful because it allows me to believe the best in people.
Something exciting happened tonight. Joey and I both frequently get little glimpses of what we want our life [together] to look like, a life that is more than just "the American dream" and a life that, quite frankly, is foolishness to many. We each got these glimpses before we were dating and once we started dating realized that we were getting the same glimpses. Tonight while talking with Rose, both of us had thoughts of how great it would be, once we're married, to house our homeless friends for a night or two (this is a very frequent, reoccurring thought). To do more than just offer them company for a short time, but to be able to provide them with a home cooked meal, warm shower, and safe lodging when they have no other recourse. Maybe that is opening ourselves up to danger (I can't say with certainty that I'll still feel comfortable doing that once we have kids), but it is also opening ourselves up to joy and fulfillment because living like that makes our hearts beat faster and stronger. So, foolishness? Perhaps. But when you live like everyone else, the world doesn't change. And I'm ready for some change. While Joey and I can't freely house people now, we came to the realization that we can do some research and explore our connections so that hopefully next time we can direct whoever we meet to a place they can stay.
Ah, Joey... I love him so much. I've never met someone who values people as much as he does. I grow in my respect for him more and more each day. I can't even fathom how blessed I am, and how I could possibly be good for him when I feel I am so bad at relationships. But why throw myself a pity party? He's patient. He loves me, and to him I'm more than enough.
Thinking about Rose makes me think about the few other "unconventional" friends I have. "T.T.", my Vietnamese homeless friend who I have been helping with her English so she can complete her G.E.D., and Clara, the elderly African-American woman who lived a few streets down from me last year who I helped cross the street (talk about cliche!) and befriended. Even though I'm no longer living in close proximity to her, I still visit her regularly. And now Joey comes with me, too. Thinking about them made me realize how sweet it would be if I could do this for the rest of my life: make friends with people whom it makes no sense for me to befriend. | | |
| Serving my own interests leaves me feeling so empty inside; the last few weeks have been proof enough of that. But no more. I'm declaring an end to this apathy which has grown from a lack of discipline! It feels good to say that. Tonight I start caring again, about something other than my own fleeting impulses. | | |
| Sometimes I'm not able to distinguish whether I'm feeling sadness or peace; but then I realize the two aren't mutually exclusive.
I went for a bike ride this evening after dinner. It was the best kind of ride, too- one that had no real purpose, destination, or time restriction. Prayer didn't come easily so I let my mind wander. I thought about -and thanked God for- all the blessings in my life. I thought about how He loves me, and how He makes me beautiful, worthy. I thought about how weird it is to not be going back to UD, to not be living with Katie and Jen. For the first time, I started to feel some real sadness about not going back. The past few months have been so full of busyness and excitement, what with work and my rapidly advancing relationship with Joey, that I haven't had to deal with the implications of graduation and all the resulting emotions.
Biking around Middletown always makes me really miss Mira Mesa and the life I had there. I wouldn't trade my life in Delaware for anything but I do really miss the "home" I knew growing up. And I guess that got me thinking about the concept of home. I spent the remainder of my bike ride mulling over home. What is home? A place? People? Is my home San Diego? UD? I've often spoken of those places and longed for my return to them as if they were home. Is my home my family? Will it be Joey? It wasn't until I returned to my street, house number 652, and settled down in my backyard that I received the answer to my question.
It was a beautiful scene. Nightfall, and a large flock of geese landed in perfect synchronization in the pond in my backyard making a sound deafening to the ears. In the simplest of ways, it was breathtaking. Yet, for all the beauty it posed, the scene left me unsatisfied. And that dissatisfaction with an aesthetically pleasing, perfect moment in nature served to remind me how God, and my longing for perfect communion with him, is what breathes life into me. If happiness on earth were all it took to be satisfied, feel complete, then there should be no reason why I'm still left wanting. I have a great, supportive family; friends I hold dear; a boyfriend who thinks the world of me and finds me worth spending a lifetime with; a job I enjoy; a college degree; a roof over my head; clothes to cover me and meals to nourish me... Oftentimes I'm a complainer, I truly am, but I am genuinely happy. Happy, but not complete. What will complete me is something that cannot be found here on this earth. It is as C.S. Lewis said, "If I find in me a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world."
I thought about how the concept of home is so fuzzy in my mind, and then I realized: I can't define home based on my past or present circumstances because I don't yet know home. Home is something that I have yet to experience; it is "[our] adoption as sons, the redemption of [our] bodies" (Romans 8:23). Quite simply, it is an eternal life spent in Heaven with the One who alone can remove this blemish (sin) from my character, and make me perfectly complete in Him. In 1 Peter 2:11 Paul says we are strangers here on earth, aliens in foreign places. Tonight those words really had meaning to me in a new way. It's okay that so often my heart is restless. I don't truly know home, but I have the hope and the promise of home. | | |
| It's been so long since I've used Xanga, it took me 5-10 minutes to figure out how to post using this "new" format. | | |
|
